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Welcome to Amnesia Fortnight 2017!
For the uninitiated, Amnesia Fortnight is an internal game jam in which the Double Fine development teams drop what they're doing and work on prototypes for new games. It was originally designed as a break away from traditionally long development cycles to make something different for a while, but in later years provided prototypes for games such as Costume Quest, Hack n’ Slash and Stacking.
Everyone at Double Fine has the opportunity to pitch a game, and via a humble bundle that gives access to older prototypes, YOU can vote on the ones you want to see us make! (You have until April 7th to vote!)
Two projects will be chosen by you, one by us and one by Tim.
The entire thing will be captured by the 2 Player Productions team, and there will be a documentary episode uploaded every day so you can watch along at home, and get a glimpse into the process of making games.
In these forums you can watch all the pitches and decide on your favorites, and talk to the prospective leads, before and then heading over to Humble Bundle to cast your vote!
The actual games making begins on April 12th! Let the games begin!

^^ That was my original thought for the dev process when I pitched the idea. We are currently trying to lock the general structure down by Tuesday. Please help us brainstorm!
EDIT: I have moved suggested ideas and the design as it currently stands to the GitHub wiki. Please take a look and suggest more ideas/alternatives or feedback on what we have so far!
Questions we should ask ourselves:
Are we happy with the design - story, structure, mechanics etc - as it currently stands?
Are there any suggestions so far that we think should definitely be included?
Which of these memories, clues etc stand out as favourites? What other cool ideas do we have?

@Jenni: I'm having some issues with the skeleton engine, that I hope you can take a look at when you get a chance. I posted an issue on the issue tracker.
I've also been playing around a bit more with Escoria and I'm able to make some stuff with it now, so I figured I'd write some observations that are probably obvious, but are less immediately actionable than the things Jenni posted in the issue tracker.
Unlike some other adventure game engines, the Escoria framework doesn't support actions on anything but what is referred to as items (unless I'm reading things wrong), so it's not possible to define actions on something that isn't a separate node. For artists, this means that items that can be interacted with should be separate images with a transparent background that can be placed in the game. Don't put any extra effort into this if you don't want to, since they can just be cropped out of your background image.
Escoria has a very flexible verb interface, and we can easily choose between a verb menu (Monkey Island style) and an action menu (Full Throttle style), or probably single-click (though I haven't figured that out yet). Artists should make images for the verb/action buttons if we decide to go with that, preferably with separate normal and clicked states.
The inventory is similarly flexible, and is just defined as a number of points on a background with with buttons for scrolling through the inventory if needed. This means we can have a traditional inventory with separate slots or something like the cardboard box in Sam & Max: Hit the Road (I don't know if it's possible/easy to make the inventory appear/disappear within the Escoria framework though). Items that can be picked up should have separate images with sizes that fit the inventory, so we need to determine a size.
Playable characters should at least have three separate images for idling and walking: left/right (only need one, since it can be reversed), front and back, but preferably more for walking at least.

I'm workshopping the idea of having some sort of voice or video chat meeting. Maybe through google hangouts (or similar). The idea is to get everyone in one place for 30 minutes to hash things out and make sure we're all on the same page.
Talk about what we've been working on and what we plan to work on. Share ideas. Share screens. Ask questions. Answer questions. Get instant feedback. Maybe record it all for log keeping and so people who couldn't make it can see/hear.
As for the time, I was thinking that a lot of people seem to be available before the live streams so maybe 1-2 hours before that?
In order to keep the meeting moving along, and not go over time, I think it would be good to have a loose agenda beforehand. For example:
Gameplay discussions(discussing what we can do to make the game more fun)
Level design discussions
Programming discussions
And then after the planned discussion has been taken care of we can talk about any technical issues a person might be having (issue with git or anything someone might have struggled with). Maybe split off into different hangouts to address specific issues.
Feel free to post about whether you would or would not be interested, offer times you would be available, and offer suggestions.

Last Amnesia Fortnight, intrepid community members came together to develop Bad Golf: Community Edition based on Patrick Hackett's unsuccessful Bad Golf pitch.
This time, we're trying something different! The following community projects will be worked on across Amnesia Fortnight:
Pongball
Tablenauts
The Lost Dev Team
Amnesia Adventure
Maybe more (if there's something else you'd like to work on - Bad Golf or something different - send a PM to @Cheeseness )!
In preparation for this, we pulled together a small team* of Bad Golf contributors to workshop three game concepts for the community to choose from to be the "primary" community project. The selected community pitch will be graced by some DF mentorship in the form of daily chat/Q&A sessions from cool people like Tim Schafer, Greg Rice, Matt Enright, Anna Kipnis, Miyuki Richardson, Camden Stoddard, Paul O'Rourke, Geoff Soulis, Kee Chi, James Marion, Jeremy Mitchell, and Chad Dawson!
Voting for the "primary" community project is now over, with Pongball being selected as the community favourite (you can view the results here). You can find more details on the individual community pitches in these threads:
Amnesia Adventure
The Lost Dev Team
Pongball
Exciting!
* Please join me in thanking the following people for their efforts in brainstorming, development and preparation that has resulted in the community pitches! @aaronscientiae @Anemone @Bidiot Bales @bobsayshilol @Cheeseness @flesk @invadererik @Jenni @Lasd @lightsoda @Lokno @Syd @Taekon @TimeGentleman @ThunderPeel

This game concept was initially suggested by @TimeGentleman and refined into the following pitch by a group of community members. For more details on that, see this thread!
To see current development progress and participate, visti the Amnesia Adventure subforum!
"Amnesia Adventure is an adventure game about a retired adventurer travelling into their memories to solve a mystery. The story lends itself to community input with differeing styles and skill levels. Art, dialogue, characterisation, and storytelling from the community can be a total mix, as we travel through memories of fighting a beast on Enok VII, getting lost in the supermarket as a child, unsuccessfully learning wizardry or being a cop in the 1970s... or was that a TV show they watched once?"
Presented by @TimeGentleman
Amnesia Adventure is an adventure game about an adventurer travelling into their memories. A story designed to facilitate community input, it allows for multiple stories set within one broader context, all potentially with their own art style. Pieces of art from members of the community with differing levels of artistic skill and styles will comfortable sit next to each other because memory is a fickle thing. It will be a diverse set of life experiences, from that time they fought the beast on Enok VII, to the time they got lost in the supermarket as a child, so even dialogue, characterisation and storytelling from the community can be a real mix.
The community would be involved at every stage. A development schedule might be: we all spend a day or two brainstorming location, story and character ideas; once they're relatively locked down, a list is created of art submissions, public domain sound sourcing, dialogue required for the community to contribute to. In the meantime, placeholder art is used to construct the game, taking community suggestions on puzzle ideas etc as we go. And hey, if no one likes the “adventurer travelling into their memories” jazz, that could be discussed too!
Concept art by @lightsoda @TimeGentleman @Bidiot Bales and @Cheeseness

This game concept was initially suggested by @Anemone and refined into the following pitch by a group of community members. For more details on that, see this thread!
To see current development progress and participate, visti the The Lost Dev Team subforum!
The Lost Dev Team is a single player puzzle platformer similar to The Lost Vikings or The Cave. Players take on the role of three game developers trying to escape a series of game prototypes. Each character has two or three unique special abilities that together can be used to avoid enemies, unlock new areas and reach hidden items. For instance, the musician could blow a horn to blast a character over a gap, the programmer could "hack" locked doors, or the artist could add a ladder leading to a new area or remove one to prevent an enemy from descending. Vote for The Lost Dev Team and help these poor developers find a way home!
Presented by @Jenni
The Lost Dev Team is a puzzle platformer inspired by games such as The Lost Vikings, The Cave and the Aaaaah! Real Monsters! game. Players take control and guide three game developers who find themselves trapped within a collection of game prototypes. Each character has a small number of unique skills that together, allow the group to traverse obstacles, solve puzzles and avoid or defeat enemies in order to get to the end of the level. Each character should have at least one "solo skill" and at least one "cooperative skill" that provides benefit to the other two characters.
With The Lost Dev Team's levels representing different game prototypes, aesthetic consistency isn't important, though a shared, tile based approach to level creation could speed up level design. Level layouts and puzzles will need to be tailored around combinations of specific character abilties, so character designs will need to be settled on early to reduce the amount of "breakage" existing levels will suffer as they're tuned.
Concept art by @lightsoda @Jenni and @Cheeseness

This game concept was initially suggested by @lightsoda and refined into the following pitch by a group of community members. For more details on that, see this thread!
To see current development progress and participate, visti the Pongball subforum!
Pongball is Pong meets pinball in a frantic team based multiplayer experience. The core gameplay is similar to pong, but with a twist: instead of Pong's empty playing field, teams must battle each other with the help of - or obstructed by - pinball-style elements like bumpers, triggers and slingshots. Get your vote past your opponents' paddles and score a win for Pongball!
Presented by @Cheeseness
Pongball borrows core gameplay from Pong and spices up ball handling and point mechanics with bumpers, ramps, triggers and other elements commonly found in pinball tables. Players are divided into teams of two (or more?) and score points by getting a ball through their opponents' goal. Players might be represented as characters rather than paddles, and will have (unique?) special abilities that can affect the behaviour of the ball or other players' avatars.
Moving forward, we'd need to work out whether Pongball should be 2D or 3D, what kinds of special abilities will make for fun gameplay, whether individual levels should be able to have their own gameplay/physics properties, and what kind of score or ball behaviour implications interacting with bumpers, etc. should have. Individual levels and avatars could explore varying aesthetics, but picking a style for UI and other common visuals would be beneficial.
Concept art by @lightsoda and @Cheeseness

Help us decide which Community Pitch should be the "main" community project during Amnesia Fortnight 2017 by voting for one or more of your favourite game concepts! (You have until April 7th to vote!)
The selected project will be the primary focus for community development across Amnesia Fortnight, and will have access to DF mentorship in the form of daily chat/Q&A sessions. Across development, you'll be able to get advice from cool people like Greg Rice, Matt Enright, Anna Kipnis, Miyuki Richardson, Paul O'Rourke, Geoff Soulis, Kee Chi, Jeremy Mitchell!
Further details, concept art and discussion on each Community Pitch can be found in the following threads:
Amnesia Adventure
The Lost Dev Team
Pongball
Voting is closed, and Pongball has been selected to be the primary project. Hop on over to the announcement/FAQ thread for more details!

Hi people!
We've got something a little different planned for the community side of things this year. Watch this space!
(it's not Bad Golf, but anybody who wants to is welcome to work on/contribute to that)

Edit:
Amnesia Fortnight returns for 2017, starting with the pitches and voting on 4/4! Watch the below to find out more, and keep your eye on this thread to find out how you can join in the development mayhem!
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